Verses and Sonnets. Hilaire Belloc

break;

      When upland shepherds see their only star

      Pale on the dawn, and make

      In his surcease the hours,

      The early hours of all their happy circuit take.

CUCKOO!

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      In woods so long time bare.

      Cuckoo!

      (Up in Mortain woods, I know not where)

      Two notes fall.

      Yet I do not envy him at all

      His phantasy.

      Cuckoo!

      I too,

      Somewhere,

      I have sang as merrily as he

      Who can dare,

      Small and careless lover, so to laugh at care,

      And who

      Can call

      Cuckoo!

      In woods of winter weary,

      In scented woods, of winter weary, call

      Cuckoo!

      In woods so long time bare.

SONNETS.

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THE HARBOUR.

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      I was like one who grips the deck by night,

      Bearing the tiller up against his breast;

      I was like one who makes with all his might

      For keeping course although so hardly prest;

      Who veers with veering shock, now east, now west,

      And strains his foothold still, and still makes play,

      Of bending beams until the sacred light

      Shows him high lands and heralds up the day.

      But now such busy work of battle past,

      I am like one whose barque at bar at last

      Comes hardly heeling down the adventurous breeze,

      And entering calmer seas,

      I am like one that brings his merchandise

      To Californian skies.

HER YOUTH.

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      Youth gave you to me, but I’ll not believe

      That youth will, taking his quick self, take you.

      Youth’s all our truth; he cannot so deceive;

      He has our graces—not our own selves too.

      He still compares with time when he’ll be spent,

      By human fate enhancing what we are;

      Enriches us with dear experiment,

      Lends arms to leaguered age in Time’s rough war.

      Look, this youth in us is an old man taking

      A boy to make him wiser than his days.

      So is our old youth our young ages making,

      So rich in time his final debt he pays.

      So with your quite young arms do you me hold,

      And I will still be young when all the world’s grown old.